Angels from the Realms of Glory/ Emmanuel

Ryan and I were going to sing this at the Frontline Christmas Praise Service but we were unable to, so we sang it yesterday on the back porch with the whole gang. It was a very lovely day.

Merry Christmas fam!

lovely Christmas sleepover with family!

We had such a nice Christmas with our kids!  We had a great meal and lots of snacks and beverages, and we had a super fun time singing out on the deck in our jammies because it was so warm out!  (Today it's supposed to be 60!)  We had a sleepover also, so everyone is still here and just waking up now.  Time for day after Christmas breakfast!

Wild and crazy weekend in DC

Big beaver

Atlas's wife?

in hotel

dinner cruise

Darryl with Joe

party at Joe's house

more party at Joe's

dinner cruise (minus Janelle)

Joe's house

Joe's house

joe's house

joe's house

What a crazy weekend this was.  Darryl and I flew to DC with Ryan and Janelle.  Joe invited our whole family down there to go to his company Christmas party at Founding Farmers restaurant, and he also asked us to do the Christmas music for his after party at his home. 

Our flight was late so we got to Founding Farmers late, but we also went to the wrong one, so had to get another ride to the right one.  It was very loud in there and not conducive to conversation...and there wasn't much of anything I could eat, so we had to buy dinner. 

After that we went to Joe's house.  There was quite a large group there.  We did the best we could with the music, and not having the right equipment, and not enough mics.  Everyone seemed to like it just fine.  For me personally, I would have preferred it to be more organized.  I do not like parties and so I ended up eating and drinking too much.  It was a late night so we pretty much just chilled out the second day. 

But the second day, Janelle wasn't doing well, so only 3 of us went to the Spirit of Washington dinner cruise on the Potomac River.  It was just plain weird.  It was just super loud and a totally foreign music genre and it was 3 very long hours.  We got back to our hotel late the second night as well. 

Then we had to get up early the 3rd day to go to the airport.  By that point Janelle was getting worse, and I was feeling sick.  We were supposed to sing at the Frontline Christmas Praise Service, but had to cancel when we got back to GR.  I'm glad we did. 

Today I did nothing but lay on the couch and watch TV and take a nap.

Tomorrow it's back to Christmas planning, wrapping presents, getting guest room ready, getting everything Christmassy ready.  I'm hoping I feel much better tomorrow.

Thanksgiving 2019

We had our first family dinner at the new house.  Still getting used to where things are but it went super well.  It was an all-vegan meal except for a small dish of chicken that Darryl cooked.  It is so wonderful to live so close to the boys and their wives...and hopefully someday soon, some grandchildren.  hint, hint...

Glenboro no more!

Yay! We are FINALLY out of our house, as of yesterday.  SO thankful it's OVER!!  I think it took us about 2 weeks to move everything out.  We had to take many, many trailer loads of stuff by ourselves and then we hired 3 guys to come help us with the heavy furniture.  They weren't happy with us because we didn't have any boxes, just heavy furniture that had to go up a flight of steps or down a flight of steps.  Oh well... we had to hire SOMEBODY!  But we did tip very well.  Ryan also came over about 4 times to help us...he was a BIG help!

Darryl and I need to recover from this.  It's been exhausting physically and mentally.  We got rid of 5 car loads of stuff to Goodwill, and I sold about $700 worth of stuff online.  We have even more stuff to get rid of.  This house is smaller, and there was no way we'd have stuffed it all in here, not to mention we just had TOO MUCH STUFF!

This house was not well cared for.  It's falling apart every which way, and it was filthy!!  Gross filthy...we are fixing it and getting it ready to resell in the spring.

3 of our neighbors have already come over and met us and they were all really nice.  I don't think we'll have any of them throwing cigarette butts in our yard.

We've already contacted Dwayne to help us find our "dream" house.  The search now begins.

this was from the inspection of the new house

packing old house

loading U-Haul

our movers weren't thrilled

The end of another era.

 This was our last time singing at Frontline.

so many changes

So many changes happened this month.  We put our house on the market.  Sold it 20 days later.  Looked at maybe 35+ homes over the course of a month.  Our agent complained a lot about it.  We put offers on 3 homes.  Finally the 3rd one looks like it'll be a keeper... we have the inspection tomorrow and then see how things go.  We never did find our "dream" home.  We actually just bought any home we thought we could fit all our crap into until next spring when more homes start to come on the market again.  We think we just started our search too late in the season to find just what we were looking for... so stupid us, we'll have to end up moving all our crap twice...  Just what I always wanted to do.

It has been a very emotional month.  Finally today I had a cry after I bonked my head on the refrigerator door when I reached in to get something.  It wasn't that it hurt, it's just that my stress level has been through the roof and I'm not sleeping much.  So, cry I must.

We did a ton of clean up in the yard.  Super hard work.

our official for sale sign

the packing begins

This is some of the staging that was done.

more staging...

and more staging...

I never liked the way they staged the living room.
It looked ok, but not a logical seating arrangement.  

I was super glad to get all their staging junk out of my house. 
This picture is just a small sampling of the stuff they brought here.  As a reminder to myself, it them 6 hours to stage our home!

Apparently this is our new home.  I do love the front porch!

The new house is only a few minutes from our current house.  We don't plan on staying there very long.  Just long enough to paint, put in new carpet and countertops and find a new home.  Riiiight, we'll see how that goes.

We won't do things the same next time around.  Next time we'll buy a house first, no matter how long it takes to find the right one, before putting ours on the market.  We will use a different agent, one who isn't getting ready for her wedding...and one who won't keep complaining about how many homes we want to see...  And as far as staging, I don't know.  I suppose it would be ok as long as I'm not living there.  I don't ever want to sell a staged house while I'm living in it.  Never again...